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Action Figures, Comics and Pop-Culture Podcast

Fusion

It is called the ProGlide FlexBall and it is Gillette’s latest razor innovation. As always they have a huge marketing and advertising campaign to launch the new razor. They are even getting some praise for the business model they are using and how it such a departure from their norm. However after reading the article and seeing some of the commercials for Gillette’s new razor something bothered me and it is something that always bothers me when Gillette advertises a new product. They always rip on their own preexisting product to make the new one look better.

I understand that comparison ads are a regular strategy used by many companies, but typically these are done comparing Company A’s new product to Company B’s new product to make A’s look better. Gillette, however, likes to compare their new product to their old product and make their old product look bad. They did it with Sensor vs Mach 3, Mach 3 vs Fusion, Fusion vs ProGlide and as the video below shows, ProGlide vs ProGlide Flexball.

Gillette does make a great product, I should know I use the Fusion, but are they going to tell me that all other companies make such inferior products that they have to use their own products vs each other to get the point across? Gillette does have innovative products, even their older models stand up over time, so why bash these older products just to make sales with the new ones? As long as I have worked in marketing, I never thought about being negative towards one of my own products and I still don’t agree with this strategy. Gillette obviously doesn’t have a problem with it and I am sure when their next great innovation comes out The FlexBall will find itself on the other side of the comparison.